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September 20, 2011

[If approved, the move
will make university places even harder to win for middle-class students who
already must achieve pass-marks as high as 100 per cent for some colleges. It
will also further swell the country's bloated bureaucracy as it faces its
fiercest challenge over widespread corruption.]

By
Dean Nelson

Mayawati, Chief Minister of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGEScaption

India is to unveil
controversial new quotas guaranteeing government jobs and university places for
Muslims and poor upper caste Brahmins despite fierce opposition from its
middle-classes.

Opponents denounced the
move as an attempt to buy "vote banks" in next year's key election
contest in Uttar Pradesh, where the ruling Congress Party is trying to regain
ground lost to Mayawati, the 'untouchable' chief minister whose
lower-caste-based party is now targeting other poor minority groups.

If approved, the move
will make university places even harder to win for middle-class students who
already must achieve pass-marks as high as 100 per cent for some colleges. It
will also further swell the country's bloated bureaucracy as it faces its
fiercest challenge over widespread corruption.

India's 'reservation
culture' is deeply entrenched and dates back to British colonial rule when
officials introduced quotas to share coveted government jobs among rival caste
groups.

But it has mushroomed
in recent years with the rise of caste-based political parties at the expense
of the Congress and its Hindu nationalist BJP opposition. Today, just under
half of all government-funded higher education places are reserved for
'untouchable' Dalits, 'other backward castes' and tribal people.

In local council
elections, 33 per cent of seats are reserved for women, while other quotas are
available for the descendants of 'freedom fighters', Indian emigrants,
returning emigrants, the disabled, and some religious minorities.

India's parliament, the
Lok Sabha, has 79 seats reserved for lower 'scheduled' castes, 41 for
'backward' tribes, and two seats set aside for representatives of its
'Anglo-Indian' community – the descendants of mixed British-Indian marriages.

For many hopefuls, a
government job is regarded as a secure, influential and high-status position
while for others it is seen as an opportunity to earn 'undeclared income'. Now,
the Congress-led government has announced plans for new quotas for Muslims,
while Mayawati, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, has written to Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh calling for reserved government jobs and college places for both
Muslims and poor high-caste Brahmins.

Minorities minister
Salman Khurshid cited the example of Andhra Pradesh, which has a significant
Muslim minority, where four per cent of government jobs are reserved.

"We will follow
the Andhra Pradesh model quite closely There will be separate
reservations," he said.

Ram Gopal Yadav,
general secretary of the Samajwadi Party, the second largest in Uttar Pradesh,
said the move was a cynical gambit to win the state's Muslim vote in the run-up
to next Spring's election. Muslims, who make up just under 20 per cent of the
state's 200 million people, could determine the election's outcome.

"When Mayawati
came to power she abolished 16 quotas for other backward castes. This is
vote-bank politics, an election gimmick," he said.

Professor R.
Radhakrishnan, an expert on caste reservations, said the benefits of quota
meant everyone now wants to be from a reserved class. "We are heading to a
point when everybody in India will have some kind of reservation," he
said.

But leading
commentator, M.J Akbar, said the reservation system has served low caste Dalits
well and is now so deeply ingrained that no Indian politician would be brave
enough to challenge it. He said the benefits should be shared by all groups which
suffered discrimination.

"If other
underprivileged groups can be uplifted by quotas, why not Muslims?" he
asked.

[Behind the scenes, many experts are advising that arguments over the future of the protocol are likely to be fruitless. Sir David King, the British government's former chief scientific advisor,told the Guardian recentlythat the protocol should be dropped, as it was only an impediment to reaching a new international agreement on averting global warming.]

By Fiona
Harvey

President
Barack Obama's chiefclimate
changenegotiator has
issued a warning over the future of theKyoto
protocol, casting doubt on a key plank of international climate
talks this December in South Africa.

Todd
Stern, the US president's envoy for climate change, said the European Union was
the only remaining "major player" that would potentially support a
continuation of the protocol after its provisions expire in 2012. The lack of
support from other countries bodes ill for the forthcoming talks at Durban.

Kyoto
is the only treaty which binds nearly all of the world's industrialised
countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions but Stern cast doubt on its future.

"Of
the major players in the Kyoto protocol, my sense is that the EU is the only
one still considering signing up in some fashion to a second commitment period.
Japan is clearly not, Russia is not, Canada is not and Australia appears
unlikely."

His words
were the broadest hint yet by one of the most influential figures at the talks
that the negotiations may stall unless the Kyoto protocol is dropped.

Behind
the scenes, many experts are advising that arguments over the future of the
protocol are likely to be fruitless. Sir David King, the British government's
former chief scientific advisor,told the Guardian recentlythat the protocol should be dropped, as it was only an
impediment to reaching a new international agreement on averting global
warming.

The
future of the protocol is a key question at theUnited
Nations climate negotiations, because most big developing countries
have stipulated that the 1997 treaty must be continued as a condition of any
future climate change agreement.

Those
developing countries are furious that rich countries are thinking of dumping
the hard-fought protocol, which they insist must be the foundation of any
future agreement.

The US
does not take part in Kyoto protocol discussions, because it has never ratified
the treaty and the current administration has followed its predecessor in
vowing not to do so.

However,
as the chief climate change negotiator for the world's biggest economy, Stern's
views carry enormous weight in the debate on possible future international
measures.

"The
Kyoto protocol is one of the toughest if not the toughest part of the
negotiations," Stern admitted. "The US is not part [of those
discussions] but what happens to [the protocol] is relevant to whether there
will be understandings on future regimes [and these] are still controversial
and difficult subjects."

He said
that the US had participated, in recent days, in international
"conversations about future regimes" on controlling greenhouse gas
emissions, and the question of whether there should be a single global regime
on cutting emissions or one that could run concurrently with a continuation of
the Kyoto protocol. Other issues discussed included whether any future regime
should be legally binding.

However,
Stern said there had been no discussions on trying to find a way forward among
a smaller number of countries, outside the UN process. Some countries have
privately criticised the UN process for the unwieldy and bureaucratic nature of
its negotiations.

Stern
warned that the US would not countenance a new climate regime that contained
"escape hatches" for some countries, and hinted that countries now
labelled as "developing" should be drawn into taking on obligations
on emissions.

"It
could not be on the basis of categories of countries that were articulated in
1992 [when the parent treaty to the Kyoto protocol was signed]," he said.
In that parent treaty, theUN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to
which the US is a signatory, economies such as China, IndiaandBrazil were judged to be developed and thus escaped
obligations to cut their emissions.

However,
the rapid growth of these economies in the past two decades has changed the
international scene, in the US view.

Stern's
words were an indication that big emerging economies such as China – the
world's second biggest economy by output – must take on legally binding
obligations if the US were also to consider doing so.

At the
negotiations in Copenhagen and last year in Cancun, China, India and a few
other big emerging economies agreed to curbs on the future growth of their
emissions but fell short of pledging absolute reductions, and the resulting
agreements do not have the legal status of a fully articulated treaty like the
Kyoto protocol.

Stern
insisted that he was "not pessimistic" about the prospect of
important progress being made at Durban towards a new international agreement
on climate.

No one
expects that any significant new agreement will be signed this year. There will
be another, bigger conference at the end of next year in Rio de Janeiro.